The private collection of Acácio Nobre
Caminho Publishing house, 2016
Patrícia Portela brings together the texts and prototypes found in a forgotten chest at his grandfather’s cellar and follows clues to new and valuable documents lost in personal and secret police files. Portela rethinks some of Acácio Nobre’s political ideas as well as his ambitious scientific and artistic projects with the ultimate aim of reviving his work and question the collective memory of a country that, had it decided to give this thinker the attention it deserved, would have been at a different place in 2016.
PS: Acácio in latin means: The one who carries no evil.
Press
“We are already accustomed to the fact that each new novel by Patrícia Portela is a feast for the understanding and a pleasure for the senses. However, this one, regarding it’s historical investigation, it’s aesthetical imagination, the creation of sensible atmospheres while playing with the inter-artistic contemporary universes, and the multiple use of (literary) registers, has surpassed everything we could have expected of the most innovative Portuguese writer of our time.”
Miguel Real in Jornal de Letras, 27 04 16
“Patrícia Portela proceeds with enthusiasm and brilliance the recovery of an invisible genius.”
José Mário Silva in Expresso weekly newspaper 10 06 16
“Readers may question the veracity of his story (…). But aren’t we all, one way or another, doing nothing but constantly and persistently justifying and confirming our existence to the world through our actions and creations? Acácio Nobre managed to do it…”
João Morales in Time Out, 25 05 16
“Author bends the limits of fiction in work on Portuguese artist. (…) by playing with the several ways onde can read, this curious book turns the (nowadays) well behaved format of the novel upside down. Patrícia Portela delivers a surprise box to the readers for them to play with.”
Leonardo Gandolfi, Folha de São Paulo, Brazil, 01-18
